Author Bremmer describes the common use of certain identifiers and
practices applied to ascetics from ancient Greek to early Christian times.
Habits of the 4th-century B.C.E. followers of the philosopher-mathematician
Pythagoras are found reproduced in the Christian desert hermits of
5th-century Syria and Egypt -- not because of a cause-effect relationship
over centuries but because shared values and ideas promote similar styles
and behaviors.

In the fourth century B.C., Pythagoras makes a sudden appearance in Attic
comedy. These characters are conspicuous for their deviant lifestyle and
appearance. They wear only a single garment, go barefoot, and probably stink
to high heaven, since they never wash. In addition they are taciturn and of
sombre appearance. Moreover, they take only water and otherwise subsist on
vegetables and herbs, totally abstaining from meat.

As Bremmer notes, comic drama exaggerates. But clearly the Pythagoreans
presented a contrary philosophy of life to that of their contemporaries. So
it is all the more fascinating that writings on the lives of early Christian
monks and hermits show "the same phenomena," even so far as to be explicit
in citing the Pythagoreans. In describing the hermit Anthony, Athanasius
used Porphyry's biography of Pythagoras; Palladius cites Pythagoras, and
Iamblichus draws the analogy between desert hermits and Pythagoreans,
the analogy between those, as he puts it, "living in the solitude of
the desert."

While obvious differences exist between Greek philosophy and the
evangelical ideals of the Christian hermits, one common factor affecting both
groups is marginalization, the "increasing alienation from urban society."
The process in ancient Greece is paralleled in early Christianity. The
Pythagoreans dwelled within the city but separated themselves from its daily
life. Their successors, the Cynics, renounced urban values altogether.
Finally, Christian ascetics, pursuing a similar evolution, left the cities
for villages, then the villages for deserts and mountains -- the final
self-elected marginalization. (A similar process could be studied in
central and eastern Asia, but Bremmer does not mention this since it is
obviously not the scope of his article.)

The author looks at several symbols of marginality common to Pythagoreans
and Christian desert monks and hermits: "the simple garment, resistance
against laughter, the drinking of water, and ... vegetarianism."

1. The simple garment

The ordinary citizen of ancient Greece wore a tunic and an
outer cloak. To own a single garment was a sign of poverty. And the single
garment could be made a sign of humiliation, as when the Athenians forced
the Potidaeans into exile (in 428 B.C.E.) allowing them to wear only a single
garment.

The Cynic Diogenes and his followers deliberately began
wearing a single garment, attributing this in part to the example of Pythagoras.
Then the Stoics Zeno and Chrysippus recommended the
Pythagorean example and their followers Cleanthes and Cato Minor began
wearing a single garment, Cato going so far as to not wear shoes, even
during official duties.

By analogy, we see Jesus, in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, sending
forth his disciples to preach and instructing them to wear no more than a
single garment. In the 3rd century, the church historian Eusebius mentions
that the theologian Origen wore a single garment as part of his "philosophic way of life."
The hermits Apollo, Isadore, and Gelasius are cited as wearing a single
garment, and even as late as the 7th century St. John the Almsgiver wore a single garment.

2. Laughter.

Austerity manifested outwardly in countenance is a hallmark of
Pythagoras. He never laughed, and neither did his disciples. Bremmer cites
examples among Christian desert hermits: Pachomuus chides Silvanus for
boisterous laughter and forewarns a monk who will be visiting a neighboring
monastery not to laugh. Melania tells her sisters to not laugh too much. Pambo reportedly
never laughed, nor did Anthony according to Athanasius, who borrows the
description from Porphyry's description of Pythagoras (as mentioned
above), as does Sulpicius
Severus in describing the hermit Martin.

3. The drinking of water.

Pythagoras and his followers abstained from wine. The literary sources
are late and conflictive but certainly the Cynics, who consciously imitated
the Pythagoreans, renounced wine. Interestingly, the Egyptian (pagan)
priests did not drink wine, nor did the ascetic Jewish Therapeutae
(associated with the Essenes).

So it is not surprising that the drinking of
only water is mentioned of many Christian hermits: Anthony, Isadore, Xious,
Poemen, and Pionite. Bremmer argues that not all the hermits and monks renounced wine, and mentions
Macarius, Xanthias, and Paphnutius. Poemen and Athanasius often made gifts
of wine to monasteries, so the practice may have been an ideal rather than
an expectation. However, Bremmer does not mention the significance of the
use of wine in the Eucharist, which may account for the gifts, distinct from
the use of wine versus water in general.

A more important distinction between Greek and Christian arises with the
issue of
abstention from wine. In ancient Greece wine was associated with aristocracy
and wealth. To deliberately abstain from wine was to identify oneself with a
lower class, to reject an obvious symbol of affluence. Because wine was an
integral part of a social ambience in ancient Greece, the rejection meant a
rejection of social class and, indeed, social participation -- a voluntary
ostracism.

Such a decision was a bold confirmation of ethical and social
conviction. The ancient Greek philosopher would not attend (or be able to attend) social
events such as festivals and dinners where wine flowed freely. It was not
merely a matter of attending and obstinately abstaining, but of no longer
socializing with a governing class and tolerating its values. "To
aristocrats, then," sums Bremmer, "total abstention meant first and foremost
a total break with their milieu."

The motive for abstention differed among the Christian monks and hermits. Nearly all
originated in the peasant class that never knew wine or at least saw it as a
class privilege, so that rejecting wine was for the monks and hermits a
continuity of their habits and less an ascetic statement, although it was a
statement incorporated into their rejection of a symbol of luxury. The
eremitic life rejected the ways of the world, among those ways being the
drinking of wine.

4. The consumption of meat

The same social dynamics in the abstention of wine recurs in the
abstention from meat. Pythagoras rejected the animal sacrifice of
contemporary religion, but, moreover, saw abstention as a social statement.
As Bremmer emphasizes: "He who converted himself to vegetarianism at once
severed himself from Greek community life." Is it not more or less the same
today?

Differences about the consumption of meat did arise among the Christian
monks and hermits. On the one hand, Pachomius (like St. Benedict of Nursia
after him) was willing to sanction meat to the sick or infirm monk. On the
other hand, Poemen refused meat even to visitors.

Ascetic practices among the hermits extended
to bread (wheat was the grain of the wealthy, barley that of the humble) and
to the use of fire in cooking (whether to eat cooked or uncooked food only).
Concerning the use of fire in cooking, Theodoret of Cyrrhus reports that all
the hermits of Syria ate without fire. But cooking was an occasional
practice in
Egypt, as Pachomius indicates.

Here we see the environmental contrast of the lush Syrian landscape
versus the desolate Egyptian desert -- options for food were governed in
part by the availability of wood. However, it was not a matter of being able
to cook meat or not; the rejection of the consumption of meat was universal.
Rather, the Syrian might make a lentil soup, for example, while the Egyptian
hermit would sprout his lentils. (My example, not Bremmer's.)

Food and diet are central to many stories about hermits, demonstrating a
concern about survival as much as asceticism or ethics. Dreams and
miracle stories are common in framing these concerns. The hermit Apollo had
only dry loaves and pickled vegetables to offer visiting brothers at Easter.
He prayed for food and angelic strangers appeared bearing grapes, figs,
dates, nuts, honey, milk, and warm loaves of bread. Patermuthius visited and returned
from heaven with similar foods. John of Lycopolis, Sourous, and Helle all
relate stories of hermits who ate no earthly food whatever but were fed by
visiting angels.

Such stories reflect the hermits' desire to champion asceticism.
Renunciation of food, like deprivation of sleep, was part of the hermit's
spiritual virtue (strength or force). Another practice was the
preference for eating alone, to avoid a brother's temptation but also out of
shame that others would see that he must eat and in what quantities and
manner.

Conclusion

Bremmer offers two insightful conclusions to his comparison of the
symbols of marginality. First is that

we can not simply derive symbols of Christian asceticism from Pythagorean
customs: these symbols should be understood in their social context. On the
one hand, there are symbols, such as wearing a single garment and resisting
laughter, which have retained their meaning. Although one cannot entirely
discount the influence of pagan tradition, these symbols could also be
explained from the availability of the human body as a source of "natural
symbols," or from the cultural community ...

Although writers like Athanasius may have cited Pythagoras, it is not an
historical continuity but a collective human consciousness that crafts
symbols -- usually the same ones, as demonstrated here -- to express values
elicited by the times and circumstances. Thus the psychological openness of
Jesus or the grasshopper-eating of John the Baptist were not imitated by the
hermits. But the ascetic vehicle of biblical counsel in general did help
fuel the goals of the hermits in identifying new symbols.

Secondly, Bremmer notes that "the Pythagorean way of life had its origins
in the growing loss of influence of the aristocracy" in the Archaic Age of
ancient Greece, characterized by growing militarization and tyranny. The
vacuum of values induced alternative movements to redefine cultural and
ethical values -- not only among the Pythagoreans in their era but among
Jewish and Christian ascetic groups in their respective eras as well.

From Bremmer's conclusions may be drawn broader insights into a
sociology of eremitism. Characteristics of historical hermits reflect the
sense of recreating a new ethic in the face of the public collapse of
institutional and class norms. The presence of such complex factors presents
eremitism as a set of historical issues not yet fully addressed, a challenge Bremmer offers.